Doc (Iron Battalion MC #5)

Prologue

DOC

One Week Ago

“King! I was wondering when the hell you and your guys were gonna show up. Thought we got stood up for a second.”

“Cap, you ol’ son of a bitch. Quit lettin’ the wind blow your dress up and get the fuck over here.”

I watched from my seat in the corner as the two men embraced.

The pats on the back could’ve been heard for miles, and it ticked my cheek with a grin.

Cap was big until King entered the room.

The man was damn near seven feet tall, and despite the friendly demeanor between the Devil’s Legion and us, the air in the room was tense.

It shifted between ‘let’s get this the fuck over with’ and ‘hand me a gun.’

The core group from The Devil’s Legion slinked into our meeting room with handshakes and hugs. Some of the guys stood in corners, catching up from the last time we saw them.

I shook hands as necessary, but I turned down the hugs.

I hated hugs.

“All right, all right,” Cap said as he lifted his hand into the air to gain everyone’s attention.

King let out a bombastic whistle through his sniper’s mask, and all of his men in their crimson red leather jackets practically stood at attention.

“All right, Devils, listen up,” King said as he stood beside Cap, “you’re gonna listen, you’re gonna absorb, and only when Cap’s done will you ask questions.”

The mass of red leather jackets nodded their heads, answering him with varying degrees of ‘yes, sir’ and ‘sure thing, King.’ The towering man turned his masked face back to our president, nodding his head as if to say, ‘got their attention, you’re good.’

Cap patted King on the arm before clearing his throat. “All right, Legion, listen up, because our crew has been through a fuckton lately, and I have to get through all of it to catch you up.”

He wasn’t joking, either.

It took Cap almost half an hour to fill the crew in on what happened.

How he and Ariel spent time together in one of these trafficking houses in the state park, as well as Wrecker and Amanda.

We told them everything. We told them about the law firm.

We told them about how Marla was chased to our doorstep, screaming and begging for her life.

We told them about the logos on the cars that did all of this dirty work, and the theories as to why we think the law firm is involved in all of this.

Hell, we even told them about our contact in the DOJ, and how we were supposed to gather evidence for them.

We even told them about how we were attacked right here on our own fucking compound.

That got King’s attention.

Not that we didn’t have it or anything.

“You heard back from your contact?” King asked. “After you guys got bombarded here?”

Cap shook his head. “Only directive we’ve got is to keep our heads above board and to not get into any trouble while our contact talks to their boss.”

King slowly nodded his head as he turned toward his crew. “You guys see anything while on patrols?”

The small sea of red leather jacketed heads shook.

“Nothing at all?” King inquired again.

And yet again, all they did was give wordless shakes of their heads.

“We have no reason to believe that they’ve crossed into anyone else’s territory yet,” I said, speaking up from the chair in the corner where I sat. “We’ve done a pretty good job of keeping their attention on us so they don’t focus on other areas.”

King’s masked face panned toward me. “And yet, we’ve still been called.”

Silence fell over all of us until Brutus, of all people, cleared his throat. “King.”

The two massive men stared off with one another. “Yep?”

Brutus sighed. “We don’t have hard evidence that they’re operating in your territory, but we have a working theory that we aren’t the only territory they’re scouring. It’s one of the reasons why we want to get the women out of here and somewhere safe.”

King tilted his head. “I didn’t realize that was part of the plan.”

“I didn’t get there yet,” Cap said as he motioned to Brutus. “Continue.”

Brutus just nodded as he stepped out of his shadowed corner. “Trafficking rings like this always temperature check other surrounding areas, especially when they encounter the kind of pressured heat we put on them.”

“And you know this… how?” King asked.

Brutus just stayed silent before he mowed over the question and continued. “You have that sister of yours. We figured you’d wanna know what pushed into our territory since one of your territorial boundaries sits along the eastern side of the state park.”

“That’s where we know they’re operating from,” Cap said.

King slowly nodded his head. “All right. So. We got a ring snatching up women. They’re clearly not doing a good job of it if a crew can keep them in check even a little bit. What do you need us for?”

Brutus paused. “Depends on the role you want to play.”

King looked down at Cap. “How long has this been going on?”

Cap tilted his head back to look up at the man. “We’ve been battling this for about a month and a half now, give or take.”

“Jesus fuck,” King muttered as he turned his focus back to Brutus. “What’s the working plan you guys have going on?”

I piped up. “I have an estate we’re going to take the women to to keep them safe.”

All eyes turned to me as I sat there in my chair, watching everything unfold in church.

“That’s good,” King said, piercing through the silence. “What do you need us for?”

I shrugged. “For one, it’s in your territory. You know that massive estate on the hillside in your area?”

King just nodded. “Locals call it—”

“Lookout Point,” I said.

King narrowed his eyes. “You’re the owner of that place?”

“My parents, yes. It’s where I grew up.”

“No shit!” King exclaimed. “Didn’t know you were a Lockhart boy, Doc.”

I just shrugged. “We’re taking the women there to keep them safe for now. We figured if we run into your territory to keep them safe, you should know what we’re keeping them safe from and what potential target that invites into your atmosphere.”

King slowly nodded before he turned back to our president. “Hey, Cap?”

“What’s up, Kay?”

King pointed at me. “He needs to do your debriefs from now on.”

The room barked with laughter, but I just sat there, my mind swirling with a million possible things that could go wrong between our meeting and the time we left to take the women to my childhood estate.

They would be concealed enough there, though we’d have to still stay concealed inside of the house.

While most of the estate was surrounded by woods and trees, the northern side of the house was exposed.

No trees. No cover. No nothing. It was the side of the house that faced town from the hill it was perched on, and I’d have to find a way to secure that part of the house. Maybe even obscure it. If only I could—

“Doc,” Cap barked.

I whipped my head up. “Hmmm?”

King chuckled as he peeked over at Cap. “You were right.”

I furrowed my brow. “What?”

Cap just chuckled and shook his head before he got down to brass tacks, turning toward the combined core of our two crews.

“All right,” he said as he raised his hand to garner everyone’s attention again, “I know this is last-minute. I’m sure there are some of you thinking that we should’ve filled you guys in earlier. But we’ve been scrambling, and we’ve tried to get our feet beneath us.”

“I don’t like the fact that this has happened, and we didn’t know shit about it,” one of the Devils said as he spoke up. “We should’ve known the instant it started happening.”

King just shook his head. “We’ve had no activity like this on any of our patrols. No one’s gone missing from town that we know of, right?”

The Devils shook their heads.

“No one’s come to us for help, right?”

They shook their heads again.

“No one’s run up on us beaten and battered, screaming for help?”

And again, the sea of crimson leather jackets shook their heads.

“Then save your outrage for when we need it the most. We got a neighboring, friendly crew reaching out for help. Let’s act like it,” King said as he turned back to Cap. “Continue.”

Cap just nodded before diving back in. “For now, our contact at the DOJ has us collecting any sort of evidence we can bring to the table that proves the appearance and operation of this ring. When we reached out initially, there wasn’t even a ring in this part of the country on their radar.

So we’ve basically flew blind, trying to work with what we’ve got. ”

“But,” King said as he piped up, “rings like this blow through small towns, chewing them up and spitting them out in the process before any sort of help arrives.”

Brutus crossed his arms over his chest. “Which is why we’re here. Doc’s estate in Lockhart is where we’re taking the girls. You guys get to choose what kind of role you want to play in all of this, if any.”

King just nodded. “How long will the girls be at the estate?”

“As long as necessary,” I said, piping up from my chair in the corner as I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Are all of you going to be staying at the compound?” one of the Devils asked.

“No,” Cap said with a shake of his head, “the core group of our crew will be rotating out who stays at the estate with the women and who stays here.”

“Wait, some of you guys are staying here?” another Devil asked.

Cap nodded. “Yep. We want to make sure it looks like business as usual here, since this is where the hotspot has been through all of this.”

“And the law firm,” Ghost piped up.

Cap pointed at the masked man. “And the law firm. We don’t want to give them the idea that we’ve moved or panicked in any way.”

“Trading out at night?” King asked.

Cap nodded. “Most likely.”

King chuckled. “You’re setting up a decoy here. Just like Greece.”

Cap grinned up at the man. “Exactly like Greece.”

“Oh hell yeah,” King said as he clapped his gloved hands together and rubbed them. “All right, assholes, listen up. We’re gonna take a vote on whether or not we want to join The Iron Battalion in their quest for glory.”

“Quest for what?” I whispered.

Cap just shook his head at me while King continued. “All in favor of partnering up with The Iron Battalion for some action, raise your hands.”

“Just! A! Fucking! Minute!”

“Oh God,” Brutus groaned.

My gaze snapped to the door as little footsteps scurried down the steps toward us.

The door slammed open, the cold wind from the upstairs whooshing into the room like someone turned on a fan.

The hair entered the room before she did, swaying up a storm as a five-foot-nothing woman with jet black hair and those same ice blue eyes as her brother came swooping into church.

Uninvited.

“The fuck?” Ghost asked.

“Anna,” King groaned as his head fell back.

She slammed the door behind her and marched right up to the massive man. “King, get down here.”

The man sighed heavily, but the short, squat little woman just crooked her finger at him. “Get down here. Now.”

King placed his hands on his knees and bent forward. “What are you doing here, Anna?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, revealing that she packed heat.

On both of her hips.

“I wake up this morning to cook breakfast for a bunch of oversized assholes who requested cinnamon rolls, among all fucking things. And just as I’m in the middle of baking them off, I hear some bullshit about a meeting?

With Cap? And I wasn’t invited!? The fuck are you guys doing, holding meetings without me, fart face? ”

The woman turned her face toward our president and put on a bright smile. “Always a pleasure, Cap.”

Cap just nodded his head. “Annaliese.”

She flashed him one last smile, that neck tattoo of hers twinkling in the light of the room before she turned her attention back to King.

Her brother.

“Well!?” she asked as she tossed her hands into the air. “The fuck you gotta say for yourself?”

King tilted his head. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “And when the fuck has that ever stopped me?”

“This meeting is crew business. You know you’re not allowed—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said as she waved her hand in the air and slowly turned around, smiling and nodding her head at every single man in the room. “I got tits, I’m not allowed, boys rule, girls drool.”

Some of the Devils chuckled, but when King shot them a look, they all cleared their throats and looked around the room. It was an interesting display, to say the least. At least, I was interested.

She reminded me a lot of my sister.

Fucking hell, I missed my sister.

“So!” Anna chirped as she placed her hands on her hips and looked back at her brother. “What’s all the commotion about? What are we doing, and how can I help?”

And to my shock, King actually piped up.

“Actually,” he said as he walked over and clapped his sister on the shoulder, “if you want in on the action, I have a job just for you.”

Something told me she was going to hate whatever he was about to say, though.

Man, I needed popcorn for our church meetings.